Hi Frenchfan,
I like just about everything on the show. My only complaint is that the season is too short. I wish they would have more episodes!

I don't mind the drinking and smoking. It's what they did back then. I remember all the partying that when on his the office world. I think it's toned down these days. Maybe, maybe not... hey that could be a new topic "Is there still wild partying going on in the workplace these days? Being in my forties I think not.... but then again, I'm older and don't partake like I used to. Also companies don't want to get sued if an employee gets in an accident and lots of companies are cutting down because of finances. But I remember some fun times! Anyway oops sorry and I getting off topic. You had some very good thoughts there.

I am a young 65 years old. I grew up and entered the corporate world during the era of Mad Men. I am just amazed as to how spot on they got it. I worked for a major computer company, and, while maybe not quite as exciting as the ad industry, we had the same issues: affairs, smoking, drinking, and sex that they have on Mad Men. And it's great to see this show present all of that in a professional manner. Extremely well done! Frankieb

"Also companies don't want to get sued if an employee gets in an accident and lots of companies are cutting down because of finances."

I think there is a major difference between the 60's and the 90's-00's: feminism.

One wrong look, one wrong word, and a man can be fired and sued for sexual harassment at work; especially in New York City, I suppose.

______________________________________

"we had the same issues: affairs, smoking, drinking, and sex that they have on Mad Men"

I'm surprised.
That means classic movies of the 60's don't usually reflect the US society of the 60's.

I really think in order for a person to understand how it was in the 60s you would have had to have been there. Bless the creators of Mad Men to take those fans born after 1960 to that remarkable time. It WAS like that: drinking, smoking and sex. And for the most part NOT blatantly depicted in the American movies of the time. There are some outstanding English movies that dared to show the seamy side of life, but in the USA we had the Doris Day/Rock Hudson type of "fluff". Enjoyable and entertaining, but one had to read between the lines to realize what those characters were really thinking. Same with the movies of the 40s and 50s, for the most part.

We (I include myself since I am now 71 and was there) were not pre-occupied with global warming, sexual discrimination, feminism and other PC subjects. We were too busy raising a family or working hard and trying to ignore the cold war and the possibility of a nuclear war.

The characters in the Mad Men story are familiar to any of us who worked in an office during the 60s. It amazes me how I can relate to so many of them since I knew people just like them. Which brings to mind another thought. I think our manners and dress code were much better then. We respected each other's "rank" or status within the organization and women worked as hard at their jobs as the men worked at theirs. Yes, the women usually had the basic filing, secretarial, clerical jobs but we knew we were the support mechanism that allowed the men to do their jobs. Some talented women got promoted (i.e. Peggy). Most of us smoked and would go for drinks after work - it was considered normal. Some even smoked at our desks. It was accepted then...get over it!

As far as FrenchFan's comment about wanting to see more "up close and personal" camera shots of Betty, or any other character, this is an hour long program, not a movie. I think the Man Men actors do a great job of showing in brief seconds the emotions, reactions, etc., required. I guess the only alternative is to get the DVD of season one and watch it over and over.

I'm not trying to be mean spirited here, just trying to say that was then, not now. We've come a long way baby, but will always have a way to go. Just enjoy Mad Men as the best history lesson on the 60s and accept it for what it is/was.

FrenchFan, your comment that the classic movies of the '60s do not usually reflect US society of the '60s is probably very accurate. I think a very strong case can be made that they did not -- although I am sure this group can come up with some very notable exceptins.

The movies started getting more and more reflective of society probably in the late '60s.

One of this issues in the early '60s was the lingering self censorship and societal censorship that governed just about everything Hollywood did. The current rating system is only about 30 years old -- and it was created in response to the public backlash against a pent-up explosion of movies that hit the screens after films like "Bonnie and Clyde" started throwing away all those old Hollywood mores and standards. But I remember when the first Bardot films hit U.S. theaters; they were regarded as utterly scandalous.

I love Mad Men period. I agree with Chelsea...13 epis is too few!

I think AMC should have a sub channel called The Man Men Network...still available on basic cable, of course. I know--dream on....

I remember "how it was" too, like everyone's posted so far...I'm 58 but I recall the rampant smoking and drinking (barely indulged in the former...lightly indulged in the latter--still do)
It was the exception not the rule to not do either at all. I remember all the affairs (nope, did not indulge in those) in nearly every office I worked during the late 60's to mid '70's (investment companies, textbook publishers, the phone co.---back when there was only one!, an insurance co., an air force base, a furniture co,---and without exception...there was hanky panky, sad to say.

On the up side, I, too, remember the "manners", rozsie...and I miss that in today's society...people back then did indeed respect each other and I wish there was a way to get back to that nowadays.

I remember, as well, David, when those "risque foreign films" came along...tame now, but back then...hubba hubba.....

MAD Men Network.....(Man Men????) help me, Lord...

Everything seems to short for everyone: life, the seasons, the episodes, the sequences, the shots... The modern rythm of life doesn't let us enough time to appreciate what we watch, what we feel, what we live. We just have to consume, quickly, consomme.
That's also why people don't respect each other anymore. We are just consumer. We are not american, french, or human anymore, we are just consumers. Our nationality? Consumer.

It is sad, FrenchFan, that life's pace has become so frenetic that one has no time for "savoring" anything anymore...it's rush rush rush and then rush some more...that's one more thing I love about MM...it's a trip back in time to when life was more leisurely (if in fact it actually was or not) at least it makes us remember it that way...

.....FrenchFan.....I like everything about Mad Men, even the things we are not supposed to like!

Have you read Alvin Toffler's Future Shock?

It's about, among other things, the information overload inflicted on us as a result of all the technological and sociological revolutions of the last century or so.....

From Wikipedia......

"Toffler's shortest definition of future shock is a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of time".

While there were the Doris Day type light comedies, I would disagree that movies from the '50s/'60s (AP style, right DavidM) didn't depict the darker side of life. Right off the top of my head, I can think of "Sweet Smell of Success" ,"The Apartment" "Butterfield 8" (both of which they even discussed on MM), "Days of Wine and Roses" ,"The Hustler", "Hud", "Lolita", "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf", "The Sun Also Rises", "Streetcar Named Desire", "East of Eden", "On the Waterfront". If I had a couple hours to spend on the topic, I could probably come up with dozens more. What was different was that movies then were able to depict bad, even vile, behavior without explicit language, sexuality or violence; the bar for quality was so much higher. Unlike today's movies that have to use the F word in every other sentence and throw in gratuitous nudity.

"Walk On The Wild Side" is also one that depicts "the darker side of life", Mambo, in addition to all the excellent examples you cited.

Barbara Stanwyck (the lesbian madam) lusting after Cappucine (the "main cat") and all the other assorted goings on in a New Orleans cat house.

It had a memorable opening title sequence with a black cat wandering the streets to that distinctive title song...very appropriate, of course.

I so agree, Mambo, the movies then depicted all the vileness with great writing and acting, without a great need for explicit language.

___ "that's one more thing I love about MM...it's a trip back in time to when life was more leisurely (if in fact it actually was or not) at least it makes us remember it that way"

That's why sometimes I like to watch classic movies (The forbidden planet, A. Hitchcock movies...). They are relaxing

___ "I like everything about Mad Men, even the things we are not supposed to like!"

In Mad Men the characters smoke and drink really too much; in classic american movies they smoke and drink, but not so much. They smoke as they breathe ! That looks unatural. That seems artificial.

___Yes I have read "Future Shock", 20 years ago; I still have the book I guess, but I don't remember its contest.

The problem of the information overload is mentioned in the movies "Strange Days" (1995) and "Johnny Mnemonic" (1995), or in a recent study about the effect of the urban environment.

___"What was different was that movies then were able to depict bad, even vile, behavior without explicit language, sexuality or violence; the bar for quality was so much higher. Unlike today's movies that have to use the F word in every other sentence and throw in gratuitous nudity."

Right.

"Walk on the Wild Side", great one, SC. I haven't seen it; I'll rent it. The director, Edward Dmytryk, did some great stuff, most of it dark, like "Murder My Sweet", "Caine Mutiny", "Carpetbaggers" and many, many more.

I half-jokingly say there is a vast conspiracy that wants us (the human race) just staring at a computer screen all day long, buying stuff, texting, watching something, not having any human contact. Just look at young people today; they walk around staring at their phones/blackberries, or whatever they're called. We are also going post-literate, I fear, what with the death of newspapers and a responsible press. I refuse to get all my news from a screen, but I'm afraid that day is coming.

Sorry to get all nut case, but this a sore spot with me, and "Fahrenheit 451" is one of my favorite movies. It's becoming too real.

Did someone mention drinking and smoking again? Chelsea's post is spot on (like always)! As much as it bothers us to see all the drinking and smoking, re-creating the 60's without those details would be fictious. Most people didn't know the drinking went on because they did it behind closed office doors. Smoking was out in the open and ashtrays were on most desks. I'm sure the actors that don't smoke in real life and have to smoke herbal cigarettes on the set, probably wish history looked different as well. My "hat's off" to those actors for giving it their best. Cheers! ;o)

.....Mambo.....Don't forget Facebook, and how half the world is camped out there, talking smack about the other half who isn't!

And Twitter. (Tweet.)

It doesn't bother me a bit to see the drinking and smoking.

It was what it was, and I find the juxtaposition to our modern sensibilties regarding these same things to be almost amusing, as is so many other things about Mad Men.....(littering, sexual harassment in the workplace, drunk driving, etc).

What it does is illustrate loudly the total lack of guilt, born of blissful ignorance on the part of the characters, in deploying those crutches throughout any and all activities. Things that would be unheard of today.

Now we know that smoking is hazardous, even fatal. We know that excessive drinking can corrupt and take lives.

These Mad Men characters who drink and smoke are, for a lot of us, our mothers and fathers - many of whom are dead now, due to their drinking and smoking.

Historically obscuring the reality would be wrong.

.....I still don't see how those herbal cigarettes can possibly be better for lungs than burning tobacco.

Burning smoke is burning smoke, if you know what I mean.

As Joe Bob Briggs once observed, I am against all gratuitous nudity, drinking, smoking, cussing and on-screen chain saw massacres in movies unless absolutely essential to the plot.

Back to the original question: I confess I bailed on the first season of Mad Men half way through because, even though it was set 30 years earlier than my experience, it made me feel like I was at work in an agency again and I was going to bed grinding my teeth. It was, I guess, too real.

DavidM, your comment about Joe Bob Briggs made me remember Mystery Science Theater 3000...anyone watch that?

That guy "trapped by an evil scientist on a satellite with his robot sidekicks and forced to watch lame old B" (more like C---or D!) movies and make fun of them "peanut gallery" style? It was sort of like Beavis and Butthead making fun of music videos...along that line. Stupid....but funny.

I'm sorry to be so off topic, but you jogged my '80's memories lobe!

.....Loved it (guilty pleasure). I wanted to audition!

___"I half-jokingly say there is a vast conspiracy"

"1984" (George Orwell) or "Brave New World" (Aldous Huxley) become more and more actuals.
History show us that conspiracies are real.

An interesting document; like many others:

"
Keep the public ignorant
Create preoccupation
Control of the education of the young
Destroy faith in this sort of government Social
Give less cash and more credit and doles
Destroy the faith of the American people in each other.

.../...

DIVERSION, THE PRIMARY STRATEGY

disengaging their minds; sabotaging their mental activities; providing a low-quality program of public education in mathematics, logic, systems design and economics; and discouraging technical creativity.

engaging their emotions, increasing their self-indulgence and their indulgence in emotional and physical activities, by:
unrelenting emotional affrontations and attacks (mental and

emotional rape) by way of constant barrage of sex, violence, and wars in the media - especially the T.V. and the newspapers.
giving them what they desire - in excess - "junk food for thought" - and depriving them of what they really need.

rewriting history and law and subjecting the public to the deviant creation, thus being able to shift their thinking from personal needs to highly fabricated outside priorities.

These preclude their interest in and discovery of the silent weapons of social automation technology.

The general rule is that there is a profit in confusion; the more confusion, the more profit. Therefore, the best approach is to create problems and then offer solutions.

DIVERSION SUMMARY

Media: Keep the adult public attention diverted away from the real social issues, and captivated by matters of no real importance.
Schools: Keep the young public ignorant of real mathematics, real economics, real law, and real history.
Entertainment: Keep the public entertainment below a sixth-grade level.
Work: Keep the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think; back on the farm with the other animals.
"

http://www.book-of-thoth.com/archives-article-5376-page17.html

Is this the handbook of the Mad Men ? :-D

___"PROPAGANDA" By EDWARD L. BERNAYS
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/propaganda_bernays.pdf
(http://www.pdf-search-engine.com/propaganda-edward-bernays-pdf.html)

Entertainment or Propaganda?
http://www.learcenter.org/pdf/WWBraudy.pdf

Propaganda and how to recognize it
http://www.rbs0.com/propaganda.pdf

Propaganda Techniques
http://www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/teachers/pdf/propaganda.pdf

(http://www.pdf-search-engine.com/propaganda-pdf.html)

___ "We are also going post-literate, I fear, what with the death of newspapers and a responsible press. I refuse to get all my news from a screen, but I'm afraid that day is coming.
"

Here comes the e-paper and the electronic newspaper...
But people don't have a lot a free time, and they certainly don't want to read bad news during their spare time, they don't want anymore to be brainwashed by newspapers and televisions programs; so they are looking for another world in new medias.

Sorry, didn't mean to open up the Pandora's Box.

Dry, what part did you want to "audition" for? (on MST3K)

I liked the "robots"...one was made out of a plastic gumball machine with wierd little springy arms, one looked to be made out of an old Kirby vaccuum (???), and the other looked like his head was a sawed in half bowling pin with a plastic "net" from an old kids' hockey board game...aahhh I miss it so, such high quality, mentally stimulating viewing!

I want to apologize to FrenchFan for being so far off topic on her/his perfectly good topic...and I do mean that...

.....The peanut gallery, of course!

Still don't know why they took MST3K off the air....

As to the thread, I don't think this is one you need to apologize for - it's pretty out there.

But, good sentiment, though!

Yes, but FrenchFan is new and might get the impression that every Maddict is like us! Most are perfectly sane and normal. Uh.....I think....

That reminds me, Dry...

When are you going to post that "Annoying, Empty, Boring Banter" thread you promised us????

....Oh.....You mean this isn't it?

.....Who you callin' "sane?"

"All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer."

--Robert Owen, 1828

...a LITTLE.....????

(that's like saying MST3K is "a little unusual")

!!!!

"Yes, but FrenchFan is new and might get the impression that every Maddict is like us! Most are perfectly sane and normal. Uh.....I think...."

Myself, I am often out of a topic.
This topic is just a pretext to talk, you know. We are not writing a book, we just try to have good time by talking about a show we like, aren't we ?

.....Deja Vu! No pun intended....

(Okay it was totally intended.....)

.....FF.....Agree with you on that, within reason, of course.

Yes, FrenchFan, thanks for your tolerance and openmindedness... that is exactly how we feel about it... our forum should be like conversation, not a lecture...but, Dry, myself, and all the other "off-season Maddicts" have just been through a very traumatizing experience in the Twilight Zone...we were held hostage by....oh never mind, we decided unanimously never to speak of those dark days again....right, Dry? and Z? and Chelsea?

(ha?)

.....And I quote, "Let us speak of it no more!!!"

.....And we really should behave ourselves. We're scaring everyone away!

So, FrenchFan, does your moniker suggest that you are a fan FROM France or a fan OF THE French?

Not that the two are mutually exclusive. : )

In the spirt of your original question still, one of the things I do like about Mad Men is the attention to detail in the costume design. I thought they had screwed up big time in an episode supposedly set in 1962 when one of the women was putting on panty hose. One of the reasons I firmly believe that there was not more sex in the early 1960s was that all the girls wore these awful long-legged girdles just to hold up their stockings -- it was like a chastity belt. Anyhow, I did not recall panty hose until later in the '60s but a digging on the subject proved that they were around in limited supply in the early '60s and who else would have been on the cutting edge of such a product but an employee of an ad agency.

So kudos to the costume designer, Katherine Jane Bryant.

Now, French fan, a question for you: what do Janie Bryant and the proprietor of L'Académie Américaine de Danse de Paris have in common?

You'll have to do some research!

I'll be good...if you will...

Don't be scared away, Maddicts...we're harmless...

Again, I apologize to FrenchFan for being silly/stupid (or any other description that might apply) on his/her thread and to any other Maddicts I might have annoyed.

Over and out.

___"So, FrenchFan, does your moniker suggest that you are a fan FROM France or a fan OF THE French?"

I am just from France. And I am "fan" of the human people only.

___ "what do Janie Bryant and the proprietor of L'Académie Américaine de Danse de Paris have in common"

She worked for the American Academy of Dance in Paris ?

"Janie Bryant studied drawing and painting at Georgia State University, but she soon moved on to pursue fashion design at the American College of the Applied Arts. She moved to Paris and then to New York"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Jane_Bryant

I like their philosophy; a kind of Buddhist philosophy:

"work with honesty
respect for oneself and for the others to gain victory over oneself rather than on the others, in order to improve oneself as an individual and member of a group"
http://www.aadp-fr.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=48

___"Again, I apologize to FrenchFan for being silly/stupid (or any other description that might apply) on his/her thread and to any other Maddicts I might have annoyed."

You don't have to apologize. This topic is just one topic amoung a hundred. It's just a chat topic.
It seems you like to have fun. it's good.
Don't worry.

....FF.....That's a very nice attitude. I couldn't find the answer to DavidM's pop quiz, either.

SCfan, don't worry too much. Good behavior is always good, but every one of the people who have asserted red-alert criticisms about going off-topic has been just as guilty at one time or another (or LOTS of times) of that, and many other transgressions, and the proof is not too far back there, in black and white. Few of us are in a position to judge.

I'd say you deserve credit for showing up every day when the rest have basically bailed. Thanks for keeping it light.

'nuff said.

I'm not worried...but, here is a little ditty that your kind comments for me not to worry brought to mind...it's from 1988 (sigh...the good old days of not so much to worry ABOUT) it helps if one likes Bobbie McFerrin, Robin Williams and Bill Irwin when watching.

I know it's rather silly and stupid....but funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9K4BKkLaCI

I'll second that Dry and SCfan..... I know whatcha speak about ha ha.

Pop quiz. I like that, Dry.

OK, so here's the answer:

Janie, a native of Tennessee, attended prep school at Brenau Academy on the campus of Brenau Women's College in Georgia, USA. She also was a student at the Women's College briefly. Brooke Desnoes, who runs the largest private dance school in Paris, is a native of Alabama and is an alumna of Brenau Women's College. They are about the same age, but I do not think they knew each other at Brenau.

If you are interested, here is a link to an article about Janie in the alumni magazine last year. And, yes, ladies, there is a photo of Jon Hamm!

http://alum.brenau.edu/Development/brenaumagazine/Spring2008/sp08JBryant.pdf

That is one talented lady, David.

What I do love about Mad Men? From a UK perspective I love above all else THE STYLE. You have captured early 60's chic in a way that so many in films/tv shows fail to do. You have caught the essence of life in those far off days of the early 1960's. Those suits...those fashions...that swagger...that confidence that the America of JFK had in buckets. What do I not like? I think a certain smugness creeps in on the writers part. Too much unconscious - at times clumsy - criticism of the times. I accept that any retro tv show will always be a stylized version of the past -no matter how well done. Alas, there is just too much of a suggestion that those "unenlightend" early 1960's were flawed but salvation is on its way in the form of the late sixties. I think the folk-singing (God help us!) priest sums up that idealised view of what was to come to America and beyond. Music - my oh my! How can any show that hopes to give a full-on flavour of those wonderful days of the early sixties FAIL to include the music of one Mr. FRANK SINATRA. His wonderful early REPRISE recordings were the soundtrack of all afluent, confident and aspirational Mad Men (and women!) of early sixties America. My goodness - they still are as of the Spring of 2009. All in all - a truly great series despite some of my pithy criticisms. Well done AMC et al! Scotty63

Yes, so true, Scotty---and also some of Dino...they were pervasive and leaving them off the soundtrack of MM is incorrect.

Maybe they'll be included in coming seasons...let's hope.

.....DavidM.....What a corker.....However did you happen upon that site? I thought I was bad!

Thanks for the great link.

Scotty.....Sometimes I think it's (rightly) criticism, when it comes to issues like unwed motherhood, domestic abuse, drunk driving, etc.
.
Other times it seems more like a fun poke at how backward the social mores were at the time, regarding issues like smoking, drinking, sexual misconduct in the workplace, littering, etc.

I agree about Sinatra (of course!), and am sure it's only a matter of time before he makes his appearance on Mad Men.

What I love about Mad Men is that, like you said, it's a stylized retro TV series, yes.

However, the one thing that they've done differently here, and most correctly, is that they don't, for the most part, fall into that same, seemingly unavoidable trap as every other retrospective look, in terms of tranlating the "times" as an overwhelmingly cartoonish caricature.

Take a 70s show (any one, none in particular), and you will find everyone wearing Angel Flights, Earth Shoes, a mood ring, and talking on a yellow bubble princess phone.

Everyone drove a Pinto or a Pacer or a Trans Am, had a cheesy, tacky kitchen with avocado-colored appliances, and green shag carpet.

They throw at you every fad that hit the decade all at once, and many people who were there know it wasn't like that.

How did I hapopen on the site? The camel told me about it, of course.

....I don't trust that camel.

Here is what the french voice of Betty looks like:
"Nathalie Karsenti"

http://www.canalcast.com/v1/book/frms_book.cfm?id_Artiste=14585

(http://www.canalcast.com/v1/recherche2/index.cfm?id_Artiste=14585)

you can listen to her voice here:

http://www.cccommunication.biz/popup/video/diffuseur.cfm?id_Video=819

http://www.cccommunication.biz/popup/video/diffuseur.cfm?id_Video=870#

Others records:

http://www.nathalie-karsenti.com/

.....FF.....Interesting! Her speech is very clipped, like Betty, I suppose.

Thanks!

MAD MEN is at its best when it limns--- to slightly horrific effect--- the ways 1960 was so different, so "politically incorrect", from today.

I was born precisely into this era-- February of 1963, so all this thematic material hits home in a big way.

Sly observations about the world of advertising, assumptions about women, the constant booze and cigarettes, the racism, and yes, the fabulicious hair, costumes, jewels, songs and sets... These are where the show excels, and my interest is held.

The constant smoking? That is EXACTLY how I remember the Sixties to be. Every adult I knew smoked. It was just "the done thing". Pregnant women smoking and drinking? Sure.

Like others on this blog, I don't care for all the sex, cheap or otherwise. I'm just not a "romantic" guy, and I savor the devilish black humor of the show much, much more. I kinda see the sex as pandering to some viewer's prurience, and that's not my scene; I'll switch on a porno for that.

I dig the cool theme music of the intro (how it concludes on that strident, boozy sneer of a major-second interval!) and the Saul Bass-like visuals.

There HAVE been one or two anachronisms I've spotted.... One ad mock-up plainly features a sketch of Jean Shrimpton. In 1960?? Uhn-uhn. Not yet, anyway.

Some of the female actresses--- granted, they are EVER-so-young here, lapse at times into a neo-Val or vaguely ghettolicious accent that certainly wasn't around in 1960.

All this said, I'm definitely MADdicted.

I'd slay to watch MAD MEN in French...

Sorry, Rasputin. I was graduating from high school the year you were born and "The Shrimp" was one of my pin-ups. She was VERY visible in the early '60s.

She was stunning...read she runs a hotel nowadays....at age 66....probably still beautiful, I bet.